Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter - Activities

Last night, we read Cindy Neuschwander's Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter, the last of the series for us.


Actually, we should have read it before Sir Cumference and All The Kings Tens, because it is more in keeping with the other, geometrically themed books, in the series - this time dealing with areas, and perimeter of circles, and rectangles. I put it off reading it though, until we had oranges in the house, to use for our story time snack.


The reason for this, is because orange slices, are used in the story to help explain, how a circle, can be turned into a rectangle...


...with one half of the circumference becoming one long side of the rectangle, and the radius becoming the short side...


...making the area of the circle equal to the radius multiplied by half the circumference. I also had a couple of paper plates ready, cut into eighths, and sixteens...


...to demonstrate how smaller slices, make for a straighter, and more accurate rectangle. Click here, for an even better demonstration of this, and a clear explanation of how the formula above is the same as the more conventional - Area of a Circle = Pi times the radius squared. Neuschwander provides a step by step explanation how to move from one formula to the next, at the back of the book too, but the link above adds illustrations.



Areas of circles might be a little beyond most younger children, but the story is still quite captivating, and it begins with a fun game, using square tiles (I happened to have a plastic set, but you could just as easily cut some squares from paper, or fun foam), to explore the difference between areas, and perimeters, called Inners and Edges.

As an added bonus, the game works perfectly with the Cyberchase episode, "Totally Rad", that we viewed to go along with the story.

It's great to be a homeschooler.